Greenwich ed board OKs preliminary plans for New Lebanon School

Board of Education members Thursday approved preliminary plans for a new building for the overcrowded New Lebanon School, an early milestone in an extensive review process by town boards.

Known as ed specs, the plans call for an entirely new building of approximately 58,000 square feet. It would include 21 classrooms, which could house 375 students, including 279 students from the New Lebanon neighborhood, 45 pre-kindergarten students and 50 magnet students.

"I believe we also need to look to the future of this community," board Chairman Barbara O'Neill told the dozens who squeezed into New Lebanon's cafeteria for the meeting. "It has the potential for growth."

The ed specs outline a new structure intended to be large enough to address New Lebanon's chronic space constraints, which persist as the student body grows. Its current enrollment is about 265. The school's Mead Avenue building totals 37,000 square feet and has 14 classrooms, making it one of the smallest elementaries in the district. Overcrowding has prompted the relocation of the three kindergarten classes to the neighboring Byram Archibald Neighborhood Center. In 2012, the overcrowding forced New Lebanon's pre-kindergarten program to move to North Street School.

New Lebanon is racially unbalanced, so the new building also would be a crucial component of the district's latest balance plan approved last year by the state. More seats for magnet students are needed for Greenwich to qualify for state funding for the project.

What the ed specs do not spell out is where a new school would go -- a subject of controversy in recent months. That decision will be made later, but by land-use boards, not the school board. Instead, the ed specs will provide an early overview of the project's magnitude to state officials when they review the district's application for state funding. The specs can be changed in later, more detailed plans.

While board members were united in their support of a new building, there was some debate Thursday about the number of classrooms needed in a new building. Board member Peter Sherr made a motion to reduce the number of classrooms in the new building from 21 to 18.

"I don't want to build a building that has three or four or five consistently spare classrooms when we have excess classrooms at Parkway [School] and excess classrooms at North Street (School)," Sherr said. "I think if we built 18 instead of 21, we will have enough room in this building to consistently meet the needs of the educational program of K-5."

"It's not clear to me the number of classrooms we need at New Leb to accommodate the (neighborhood) kids, plus the additional 50 seats to fulfill the magnet seat requirement in order to make us eligible for the reimbursement from the state," von Braun said.

But other board members showed little interest.

"The excess capacity at Parkway has no bearing whatsoever on the capacity at New Lebanon School since the board took a strong stand to maintain neighborhood schools, starting with pre-k, going all the way up," Vice Chairman Jennifer Dayton said.

Peter Bernstein also was emphatic in his support of 21 classrooms. He cited Glenville School, which is already crowded just a few years after its current building opened.

"We've stripped out pre-k, we've stripped out kindergarten," he said. "There's no reason to rebuild this building with the same exact specs that we have now. I really think we ought to focus on the long-term strategy and not be looking at taking away one or two rooms."

Superintendent of Schools William McKersie also urged the board to endorse 21 classrooms.

"There may be some additional space built in now, in the planning, knowing that we need to think long term and not get caught with a building that is a few sections too small," McKersie said.

Ultimately, only Sherr voted for the motion.

The board then quickly moved in a 7-0-1 decision to approve 21-classroom ed specs. Sherr abstained.

Typically, building location does not figure that prominently in the early discussions about major school construction projects. But architects presented the ed specs with site options because board members have been considering different types of construction at New Lebanon.

The site scenarios have created a great deal of contention. Many community members, especially in Byram, were upset when architects unveiled in October a plan, known as Scheme B, for a new building to go atop the William Street ball field next to the New Lebanon campus. They also presented a Scheme A plan, with different ed specs, for an expansion. But that proposal has received far less attention because there is much less interest in adding on to New Lebanon's existing building on Mead Avenue.

In November, architects presented another plan, Scheme C, to show the field was not the only viable location for a new building. Scheme C calls for a new structure on a plot of woodlands just east of the current school building. It has received a much more favorable reception. The building dimensions in C are similar to those in Scheme B.

Technically, both Scheme B and Scheme C are still on the table. But subsequent plans that go before the land-use boards will likely be based on C's location, given the amount of opposition to building on the William Street field.